I've just spent the last week installing and testing these virtualisation software for the purposes of running Windows 8 with Visual Studio software on my Mac Air. I want start using it more as a Mac rather than staying locked into bootcamp'ing

The results have suprised me compared to what i have read in the reviews about windows performance in these VMs.

In my real world usage i have found that:

* Parallels Trial performance is very poor, its slow and prone to freezing up for seconds. However Parallels has great integration and ease of use features

* VMware Trial performance is acceptable but also prone to regularly hanging for shorter bursts of time than parallels. I also experienced Windows 8 regularly crashing on VMWare with blue screen of death (HAL_INITIALISATION fail) after prolonged use. However integration was good. But the predictable BSOD was unacceptable.

* VirtualBox performance was remarkably fast and extremely usable, i didn't experience any hanging. However integration and ease of use features are minimal.

I would like to what others experience is, if they are different from mine. Also what kind of applications you are using. Thanks in advance

I am a little confused as to why you gave VirtualBox such a rating for integrated features and ease of use. I find the other 2 more lacking in that aspect and are more of a pain to configure. Either way I would still use bootcamp unless I had an extremely high end mac with tons of ram. That would be the only way to use applications I need with minimal performance loss.

I've never dealt with freezes with Parallels, I'm not sure how much ram or cores I've configured but with my stock i5 with 8GB 1600 DDR3 I haven't experienced any of the sort, and I've been running it since early November.

Also a tip with Parallels, I didn't buy it until December, but after the 10 days ran out you can set calendar back and it'll function again, really stupid flaw, but got me by until I got my student edition.

I am a little confused as to why you gave VirtualBox such a rating for integrated features and ease of use. I find the other 2 more lacking in that aspect and are more of a pain to configure. Either way I would still use bootcamp unless I had an extremely high end mac with tons of ram. That would be the only way to use applications I need with minimal performance loss.

By integration i mean USB devices plugged into VMware and Parallels are accessible in windows, but not always through virtual box.

I have used Virtual Box / VM Ware server and a few other options - I really liked VM Ware server, when you intend for the VMs to run headless to perform tasks but Virtual Box's installation is simple if you are looking for a quick solution.

Hi,

I have used Virtual Box / VM Ware server and a few other options - I really liked VM Ware server, when you intend for the VMs to run headless to perform tasks but Virtual Box's installation is simple if you are looking for a quick solution.